This invention relates to a key and a lock which can be opened by said key.
This invention was developed to fill the need for a secure lock and key system for electric meters. As energy costs have risen so has the incidence of meter tampering and customer diversion. The electric meter is the most important element in the utility company's revenue collection system and must be guarded with the utmost security. This invention, although not limited to this application, was developed to fulfill the specific needs of a utility company that must lock many units and have access to all of the units with one key. In a typical application, a large utility company might have 1,000,000 locking units and 1,000 employees who would require access to these units. To have many different key combinations in the system would be impractical, requiring each employee to 17 carry many different keys or limiting the locations that he could access to the particular keys that he possessed. In a large locking system with all of the locking units keyed alike and protecting a valuable asset, the key becomes a valuable commodity which is highly sought after. If the key is easily reproducible, an original will invariably get out and, within a short period of time, will be duplicated many times over; ruining the security of the entire system and making the utility company's substantial monetary investment in security worthless. It is, thus, very important to have a locking system that requires a key which is very difficult to duplicate.
The lock and key systems which have been designed for this application by other individuals have attempted to address the specific problems of the utility company. Examples of such locks are generally shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,714,802 and 4,415,190. These prior locks have failed to provide a system that fills all of the constraints of such a demanding application. While the lock must be secure, it must also be economical to manufacture (a constraint which imposes severe limitations on the features of a product without significant innovation in the design of parts for manufacture). The prior locking systems for this application suffer from several, if not, all of the following limitations: their keying system fails to provide the necessary degree of security; the keys are easily duplicated or there are objects readily available which can be used in place of the key with little or no modification to open the lock; the key serial numbers have no protection from obliteration; the keys are bulky and difficult to carry in a pocket or on a key ring; key operation is cumbersome; different elements of the key wear out, requiring replacement or considerable maintenance, making its use frustrating or impossible; weather adversely affects the lock's internal elements, degrading or inhibiting operation; the lock's protective housing can be overcome or particular elements can be fouled or a common tool can be used to extract the lock from its locking fixture; the key holes are of a size or configuration that hinders clean out in the event of malicious tampering or fouling by insects (there are certain insects that are attracted to the lock holes for nesting sites); the lock size and configuration prevents interchangeability with the majority of existing locking fixtures.